Cardboard Tube Flowers Craft

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Looking for a fun spring or summer craft for the kids to do that’s inexpensive and fun to make? With a few cardboard tubes your children can make this cute flower craft to display.

I have to giveFamily Fun magazine credit for the inspiration of this craft. The original craft showed flowers with much more narrow cut petals and green bamboo skewers as stems with slices of cardboard tubes as leaves.

I changed the craft a bit to make it easier for younger children.

Cardboard Tube Flowers Craft

Materials needed:

Cardboard Tubes (If you don’t want to use toilet paper tubes, you can cut paper towel tubes to size.)

To start, cut slits on each end of the cardboard tube, leaving about a 1 inch space in the middle un-cut. We cut 10 petals on each of our tubes, creating thicker petals that were easier for young children to paint later.

Have your child paint both sides of the petals. If the weather permits, this is a great activity to do outside!

Once the paint dries, you will add stems and flower centers. I didn’t have bamboo skewers, so we recycled drinking straws for stems. And since we planned on putting our flowers in a “vase,” we skipped the leaves. Simply poke a hole in the center of the cardboard tube to push your straw into. Then crumple up some colored tissue paper and push it into the cardboard tube to make the flower’s center.

Check your recycling container for the perfect vase. A recycled Kool-Aid container was just the right size for our 3 flowers. The kids decorated it carefully with fairy and flower stickers.

When your children are finished you will have a unique table centerpiece that won’t wither in just a few days.

This cardboard tube flower craft would make a cute Mother’s Day gift or a fun teacher gift as well!